5 ms·

> Possession of CSAM should be illegal regardless of whether it's "real" or not. From a purely ethical standpoint: why? What is the purpose of punishing someo

by sneak 3y ago

> Possession of CSAM should be illegal regardless of whether it's "real" or not. From a purely ethical standpoint: why? What is the purpose of punishing someone who has harmed no one? No victim means no crime.

chatmasta 3y ago
From a purely ethical standpoint, sure, I agree. But we live in reality, and there are plenty of activities that seem ethically victimless, but are practically necessary to criminalize, in order to uphold societal frameworks and expectations of morality. In this case, by giving every CSAM criminal a potential excuse that they "thought it was AI generated," the real victims are further victimized by being deprived of justice or forced to prove their realness.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  Broadening the definitions of crime to make it easier to punish the ethically guilty on scant evidence while incidentally sweeping up the ethically innocent is a hack around a legal tradition that is designed exactly on the principal that it is better that the guilty go unpunished than the innocent are punished, by making the genuinely innocent administratively guilty, and we ought to reject that kind of justification every time it rears its head. (There are times when it is important to have commonality while the choice of the common practice isn't important, which justifies regulations of obviously ethically unimportant things like "which side of the road is it correct to drive on relative to the direction of travel"; but where the purpose of a crime is purely to lower the evidentiary bar to punish people presumed guilty of a narrower crime, that's just an attempt to hack around the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof of guilt.)
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    I agree with you. I think our disagreement here is over the level of innocence of someone possessing AI generated CSAM. If you believe, as I do, that such a person is guilty of a crime, then we're not risking the false guiltiness of an innocent person. At best, we're risking their level of sentencing. And I'm open to the idea of reduced sentences for AI CSAM, but it shouldn't be a factor in determination of guilt (i.e. it should be a matter between the judge and the defendant, rather than something the prosecution needs to prove). With regards to CSAM criminalization in general, there is a real risk of punishing innocent people that may have been framed by planted evidence. But this is a risk regardless of whether the evidence is "real" CSAM or not, so legalizing possession of AI-generated CSAM doesn't reduce the risk of an innocent person being framed. It might make it "easier" for a bad actor to frame someone, since they can now do it with AI content instead of real content. But if they're already planting evidence, do they really care whether they're committing a crime while preparing the evidence? And besides, if we keep the AI content illegal, then it's equally legally risky to frame someone with it as it is to frame them with real content. The problem of prosecuting "innocent" people, whether you believe they're innocent because they were framed or because they're only guilty of possessing AI-generated CSAM, should be addressed at the time of enforcement. Stop using entrapment and fishing expeditions as an enforcement mechanism. Only open investigations when they start with a real and identifiable victim, rather than a potential perpetrator.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > I think our disagreement here is over the level of innocence of someone possessing AI generated CSAM. > If you believe, as I do, that such a person is guilty of a crime, You just explicitly said upthread that ethically they are not, but argued that it is useful for them to be treated as criminals because it denies an excuse to those who are ethically guilty because they are possessors of genuine CSAM. You seem to be moving your fundamental ethical premises around in response to it being pointed out that the argument you previously made conflicts with a different widely proclaimed ethical premise.
      - chatmasta 3y ago
        My ethical premise is that there is no direct victim of AI generated CSAM, but that it's worth criminalizing because otherwise it further victimizes victims of existing law. In other words, there is a societal victim of it. To me it's the same ethical premise but interpreted within two different frameworks: one that's purely idealistic, and one that's based in practical reality.
        sneak 3y ago
        AI cannot generate CSAM, because AI cannot abuse children. AI makes fictional images, which definitionally cannot be images of child sexual abuse. There is literally no victim of any kind, even conceptually, in the case of computer generated imagery. It should be protected artistic expression.
        chatmasta 3y ago
        What if a police officer generates some AI CSAM and then sells it to someone who thinks it's real? There's still "no victim," but the buyer thinks that there was. Are they guilty of a crime? Your logic would seem to imply that there's no crime with possession of real CSAM either, and that the only crime lies with the original abuser who took the pictures.
        3y ago
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    Broadening the definition of a crime isn't exactly unheard of. To choose a less emotional subject, mattress tags. The ethical reason for mattress tags is because historically people would sell mattresses stuffed full of all sorts of unsavory garbage. What we actually criminalized, or at least were trying to prevent, was some sort of fraud or public endangerment. But we also along the way made it illegal for sellers to remove the tags from mattresses. Removing the tag isn't inherently harmful; if you don't deceive the purchaser on the contents of the mattress, it's not even fraud. But we broadened the definition of the crime to make it easier to enforce.
    - novok 3y ago
      You are going into forced labelling disclosure, which can have a lot of benefits beyond fraud prevention because it increases informed consent and all sorts of other net goods. It's the logic and ethics of nutrition labels, and IMO is probably one of the more good vs bad things that govts can mandate.
qingcharles 3y ago
There are plenty of "victimless" crimes that society deems unsavory and punishes. e.g. smoking pot in your home, alone is a crime in a lot of jurisdictions, even though clearly no-one is harmed. In a lot of jurisdictions the decision has been made, whether it is right or wrong, to criminalize AI CSAM. The people have spoken and the lawmakers have made the laws. If you or I think that is wrong then the options are to lobby for a change.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > There are plenty of "victimless" crimes that society deems unsavory and punishes. That is not an argument against the concept that that should not be the case.
adrr 3y ago
Plenty of actions are crimes without real victims. Not having insurance while driving is an example. Possession of explosives is another one.
- chatmasta 3y ago
  In fact, you might even argue that possessing real CSAM has no victim. After all, the person possessing the image isn't the one who committed the abuse and took a picture of it, right? But we've collectively decided that it's worth punishing that crime, because every viewer is an enabler of the abuser. The same logic should extend to AI-generated content. To put it another way, consider a thought experiment where a police officer generates CSAM with AI and then sells it to someone who thinks it's a real picture of a real victim. We should arrest the buyer, right? They thought they were committing a crime.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    You have literally proposed 'thought crimes'.
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      There's plenty of precedent where police officers pretend to be an underage person and some shmuck replies to them and agrees to meet at a hotel. Then they get arrested, and much of the time they also get prosecuted and convicted. You could argue it's entrapment but the fact is that most of society supports that sort of preemptive law enforcement. If you looked at it through a purely ethical framework then you could never convict the person because there was never any "real victim." But is that the right way to look at it? It's certainly not the way most people look at it.

by sneak 3y ago

chatmasta 3y ago

From a purely ethical standpoint, sure, I agree. But we live in reality, and there are plenty of activities that seem ethically victimless, but are practically necessary to criminalize, in order to uphold societal frameworks and expectations of morality. In this case, by giving every CSAM criminal a potential excuse that they "thought it was AI generated," the real victims are further victimized by being deprived of justice or forced to prove their realness.

dragonwriter 3y ago
Broadening the definitions of crime to make it easier to punish the ethically guilty on scant evidence while incidentally sweeping up the ethically innocent is a hack around a legal tradition that is designed exactly on the principal that it is better that the guilty go unpunished than the innocent are punished, by making the genuinely innocent administratively guilty, and we ought to reject that kind of justification every time it rears its head. (There are times when it is important to have commonality while the choice of the common practice isn't important, which justifies regulations of obviously ethically unimportant things like "which side of the road is it correct to drive on relative to the direction of travel"; but where the purpose of a crime is purely to lower the evidentiary bar to punish people presumed guilty of a narrower crime, that's just an attempt to hack around the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof of guilt.)
- chatmasta 3y ago
  I agree with you. I think our disagreement here is over the level of innocence of someone possessing AI generated CSAM. If you believe, as I do, that such a person is guilty of a crime, then we're not risking the false guiltiness of an innocent person. At best, we're risking their level of sentencing. And I'm open to the idea of reduced sentences for AI CSAM, but it shouldn't be a factor in determination of guilt (i.e. it should be a matter between the judge and the defendant, rather than something the prosecution needs to prove). With regards to CSAM criminalization in general, there is a real risk of punishing innocent people that may have been framed by planted evidence. But this is a risk regardless of whether the evidence is "real" CSAM or not, so legalizing possession of AI-generated CSAM doesn't reduce the risk of an innocent person being framed. It might make it "easier" for a bad actor to frame someone, since they can now do it with AI content instead of real content. But if they're already planting evidence, do they really care whether they're committing a crime while preparing the evidence? And besides, if we keep the AI content illegal, then it's equally legally risky to frame someone with it as it is to frame them with real content. The problem of prosecuting "innocent" people, whether you believe they're innocent because they were framed or because they're only guilty of possessing AI-generated CSAM, should be addressed at the time of enforcement. Stop using entrapment and fishing expeditions as an enforcement mechanism. Only open investigations when they start with a real and identifiable victim, rather than a potential perpetrator.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > I think our disagreement here is over the level of innocence of someone possessing AI generated CSAM. > If you believe, as I do, that such a person is guilty of a crime, You just explicitly said upthread that ethically they are not, but argued that it is useful for them to be treated as criminals because it denies an excuse to those who are ethically guilty because they are possessors of genuine CSAM. You seem to be moving your fundamental ethical premises around in response to it being pointed out that the argument you previously made conflicts with a different widely proclaimed ethical premise.
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      My ethical premise is that there is no direct victim of AI generated CSAM, but that it's worth criminalizing because otherwise it further victimizes victims of existing law. In other words, there is a societal victim of it. To me it's the same ethical premise but interpreted within two different frameworks: one that's purely idealistic, and one that's based in practical reality.
      - sneak 3y ago
        AI cannot generate CSAM, because AI cannot abuse children. AI makes fictional images, which definitionally cannot be images of child sexual abuse. There is literally no victim of any kind, even conceptually, in the case of computer generated imagery. It should be protected artistic expression.
        chatmasta 3y ago
        What if a police officer generates some AI CSAM and then sells it to someone who thinks it's real? There's still "no victim," but the buyer thinks that there was. Are they guilty of a crime? Your logic would seem to imply that there's no crime with possession of real CSAM either, and that the only crime lies with the original abuser who took the pictures.
        3y ago
- saalweachter 3y ago
  Broadening the definition of a crime isn't exactly unheard of. To choose a less emotional subject, mattress tags. The ethical reason for mattress tags is because historically people would sell mattresses stuffed full of all sorts of unsavory garbage. What we actually criminalized, or at least were trying to prevent, was some sort of fraud or public endangerment. But we also along the way made it illegal for sellers to remove the tags from mattresses. Removing the tag isn't inherently harmful; if you don't deceive the purchaser on the contents of the mattress, it's not even fraud. But we broadened the definition of the crime to make it easier to enforce.
  - novok 3y ago
    You are going into forced labelling disclosure, which can have a lot of benefits beyond fraud prevention because it increases informed consent and all sorts of other net goods. It's the logic and ethics of nutrition labels, and IMO is probably one of the more good vs bad things that govts can mandate.

qingcharles 3y ago

There are plenty of "victimless" crimes that society deems unsavory and punishes. e.g. smoking pot in your home, alone is a crime in a lot of jurisdictions, even though clearly no-one is harmed. In a lot of jurisdictions the decision has been made, whether it is right or wrong, to criminalize AI CSAM. The people have spoken and the lawmakers have made the laws. If you or I think that is wrong then the options are to lobby for a change.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> There are plenty of "victimless" crimes that society deems unsavory and punishes. That is not an argument against the concept that that should not be the case.

adrr 3y ago

Plenty of actions are crimes without real victims. Not having insurance while driving is an example. Possession of explosives is another one.

chatmasta 3y ago
In fact, you might even argue that possessing real CSAM has no victim. After all, the person possessing the image isn't the one who committed the abuse and took a picture of it, right? But we've collectively decided that it's worth punishing that crime, because every viewer is an enabler of the abuser. The same logic should extend to AI-generated content. To put it another way, consider a thought experiment where a police officer generates CSAM with AI and then sells it to someone who thinks it's a real picture of a real victim. We should arrest the buyer, right? They thought they were committing a crime.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  You have literally proposed 'thought crimes'.
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    There's plenty of precedent where police officers pretend to be an underage person and some shmuck replies to them and agrees to meet at a hotel. Then they get arrested, and much of the time they also get prosecuted and convicted. You could argue it's entrapment but the fact is that most of society supports that sort of preemptive law enforcement. If you looked at it through a purely ethical framework then you could never convict the person because there was never any "real victim." But is that the right way to look at it? It's certainly not the way most people look at it.